St. Patrick's Eve

I'm going to remember as much as I can about March 16.

2012. My roommate Cameron Eaton and I had to get up early to go help one of our home teachees, Katie Steck, set something up in the Wilk. I was wearing my Snoopy "It's cool to be Irish" shirt. When we were waiting at the stoplight at Campus Drive and 900 North, a woman stopped and asked us where the pool was. Cameron redirected her, for she was way off. There was a high school swimming thing going on; I think Cameron knew that because he often went swimming. We helped Katie, but we just had to carry some things from her car. She didn't need much help from us. So with that extra time in the morning, I went into the library to do some last-minute studying for my Semantics and Pragmatics test. I opened up the Google doc study guide I had made, and some people had made some very funny comments. I would put them here, but I don't think anyone would get them ("You had to be there" kind of thing). I sent out a message that said, "Red writer [because the person had written in a red font], you have made my morning." Then I went to our classroom in the RB. We saw all the people there for the high school swim meet. There were lots of booths set up near the windows that overlooked the pool, which I had to pass on my way to class. I was almost finished when our time in the classroom was up. Those of us who hadn't finished had to finish in the hall. I was standing up, because I was just doing a final review of my answers, and I think Dr. Oaks told me I could sit down, but I was almost done. I might have seen my former companion "Elder" Duncan." It was a nice spring Friday, and I was feeling quite pleased that my test was over, and I felt like I did pretty well on it. I went to Sugar 'N Spice in the Wilk. I got a chocolate-chocolate donut with green sprinkles and a sugar cookie coated with green icing with a little shamrock design on it. The girl who rang me up told me she loved the cookies. I ate the donut while I walked home; I walked a way I hadn't walked before. Then when I got home I ate the cookie, and the frosting had melted and stuck to the bag. It was pistachio flavored, and I hope they have them again this year. I read my scriptures and took a nap before I went back up to my Editing class. This might have been the day that they passed around candy because of the game we had played the week before. They gave out candy in Easter wrappers, but I picked out some that had gold and green wrappers so that I could eat them. Then I went home. I told my mom I wanted to get some green shoes or green pants. So we went out looking. I couldn't find any green shoes at Famous Footwear. We went to five stores, but I can't remember what all of them were. As we were driving to Smith's Marketplace, my mom told me about the restaurant Granny Annie's that was where Marie Callendar's had been. She said she had wanted to try it because she loved the name, but it was terrible. I looked at the shoes at Smith's Marketplace. They had green Converse shoes, but they only had women's sizes. Then I looked at men's clothes. I found some clearance green pants. There were some that were the right waist, but they were too short. I ended up getting some that were big at the waist but the right length. We had to get someone to open the dressing room, and she asked if I was getting the pants for the next day. My mom told me that she liked the pants when I had them on; she thought they were ugly before she saw them on me. We bought Hugo on DVD. When we were checking out, the cashier asked if we had seen the movie, and she also asked if I was getting the pants for St. Patrick's Day. Then we went home, and I ate some key lime pie frozen yogurt, even though it was after 9. Then I got on my computer. I remembered hearing that Jan Terri had some holiday songs, so I checked them out. First I watched "Get Down Goblin"; I was pleased with the reference to The Munsters and The Addams Family. Then I watched "Rock N Roll Santa."


I was sad that it skipped (I later discovered a better version). I thought it was really funny. My mom wasn't really paying attention and thought she was saying "Whack-a-Mole Santa." My mom thought it was funny how much I thought it was funny. Little did I know that those songs would end up changing my life.

2011. I went to institute that night. There was an older couple that always provided food. That night it was "St. Patrick's Day split pea soup." The wife was wearing green. I thought about showing them my shirt (which was under my hoodie), but I didn't.

2009. We played dodgeball at one of the Coeur d'Alene buildings. In my first area we had often played dodgeball, and I liked it, but we played "every man for himself." On this occasion we were playing on teams, which I didn't like. Elder Betenson later told me that he was surprised at how bad I was, considering how much I had often talked about dodgeball. This is my journal entry for the day:
"This morning we went and played dodgeball. It was fun but I had forgotten how appallingly bad I am. I'm kind of embarrassed now. It's one of those nights I know Elder Betenson hates me, and I was simply trying to explain my past reasoning for being desirous of vampiric qualities.

"But this evening after dinner we went and saw Wayne Timonen, who is excited for us to teach him the lessons." Wayne Timonen was a man who had been inactive but had recently started coming back to church. I think we saw him that night to ask him about his commitment to give someone a Book of Mormon.


2008. It was Elder Condie's first Sunday in our wards. In the morning we went to the Northpointe Ward PEC, and Bishop Larson reproved us that we didn't have many names on our progress record. I remember at some point that day, Brother Palmer, the Northpointe ward mission leader, told us he was glad Elder Chun got a baptism before he left (since Brenna Carlsen had been baptized the previous week). Brother Mears from the Greenbluff Ward asked me if we had seen the Johnsons, an elderly nonmember couple--they were his special project. I told them that I had talked to Sister Summer (their daughter) and she said that we should wait to see them because her dad was having surgery. Brother Mears said something about how I should ask Vickie Summers about giving her parents blessings. I think that Elder Condie went to Greenbluff ward council while I went to the Northpointe Ward's ward council. Our investigator Duane came to church in the Northpointe Ward that day. I remember him telling someone he was investigating. When we were leaving church, Sister Pugh asked if Elder Condie was a new missionary. To think that I would ever train a new missionary is laughable! Here is my journal entry for the day:
"The wards don't trust me. It is quite frustrating. President Miller [the elders quorum president in the Greenbluff Ward] I guess said some stuff to Elder Condie implying I don't know anything. And Greenbluff wants us to continue working with the Johnsons even though I called Sister Summer about them and she said not to stop by for a few weeks due to recovery from surgery. It didn't help that our progress records were bare.

"But Duane came to church. Brother Welsh sat with him for Sunday School and priesthood opening exercises. He participated, and we set another date for them. I'm so excited!" (Duane and Vickie were golden investigators, but for some reason they never got baptized.)



2006. I walked into school wearing my Snoopy "Cool to be Irish" shirt and carrying a dish with a cake in it for my French class. I heard one guy say, "Is today St. Patrick's Day?" It was the day that our cultural projects were due, so we brought different desserts for the requirement. In France they eat bûches de Noël at Christmas, which are yule log cakes. But I made a bûche du jour de Saint Patrick-- I put green sprinkles on it and a little pot of gold. A girl in my class had had the same idea. But while mine was a chocolate cake with decorations on it, she made hers a different kind of cake with a mint filling. After class I went and put the dish in my car. I went to my Pre-Calc class, and Josh Roberts said he wondered if it was St. Patrick's Day because of my shirt.

2004. I was wearing a white polo shirt with a shamrock tie. Someone in my science class asked if it was St. Patrick's Day. I said no, and they wondered why I was dressed that way. I think this was the night I had to go to Trevor Young's house to work on a project in which we were presenting news stories from Samoa or one of those islands. My mom dropped me off, and she later said that a kid in the yard (Trevor's younger brother) had been on my soccer team when I was 9. We met in Trevor's basement. Greg Gabbott came, and Trevor's mom knew him, but she didn't know me. One of Trevor's little brothers came in and wanted to know who I was. Trevor seemed annoyed with this brother, and told him I was just one of his friends. His younger brother said, "He talks funny." We all found that hilarious. I told them about the article I found about someone robbing a house "armed with fishing spears." Trevor wanted to film us reporting our news articles in front of an outdoorsy wallpaper, but I didn't like the idea. Then my dad picked me up, because my mom was at mutual. I went to the Joneses for part of mutual, where we were making pizza. Then that night my mom went and bought things for me to take to seminary the next day. I wanted those Pillsbury cookies that you cut that had shamrocks on them, but she just bought plain ones. We tried to put green sugars on them. She also bought a loaf of bread with green stripes for our dinner the next day.

2003. It was my uncle Paul's fiftieth birthday, so we had a party at my house. There was a balloon that had people dressed in old clothing and said "Welcome to the Middle Ages." My aunt and my mom were quite amused by a balloon they had bought Paul ten years earlier. It doesn't sound like a very clever balloon to me, but to this day they still bring it up as if it's the funniest thing ever. After church I changed into an orange polo shirt. Then I had to go home teaching with Brother Naylor. The Spencers commented on my orange shirt. When Brother Naylor dropped me off, he pointed out that we were having a party.

2002. We went to Winegar's to buy things to make cookies for my cousin Hiram's farewell. I noticed the green mint chips, so my mom bought them. We made two kinds of cookies that night. We made regular chocolate chip cookies with green dye in the batter, and cookies with mint chips instead of chocolate chips. My mom said that people wouldn't want to eat the green dye cookies, but it turned out that they ate more of those than the mint ones.

2001. It was our sixth-grade mini-society day (which was basically a day where we ran stores). Since I had a quite lucrative business selling homemade window clings, I had a lot of money that I used to buy a stovepipe hat from Jaydon Bean. Mr. Williams, my teacher, said that I bought the hat he wanted. A girl named Brittany in my class wore a St. Patrick's Day hat, since they usually had hat contests for St. Patrick's Day, but they didn't that year. I wore a green shirt to bed that night.

1996. My parents took me to the Salt Lake City St. Patrick's Day parade. I was probably wearing my little plastic green derby hat. I noticed that they had painted clovers on the street. There were lots of bagpipers. Near to us there had been some people with picket signs that had St. Patrick's Day messages. When they left, they just left the signs on the ground. My parents told me I could take them, but I didn't want to. (Maybe it was because I thought those people must have been wicked, since they littered, and I figured that anything they had must be wicked too.)

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